


run boy run

by cabinfever



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Gladio is Strong, Hurt/Comfort, veeeeery slightly implied ignoct if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14851052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: Ignis and Gladio go scouting in the depths of Balouve before their group attempts to go down there. Things really don't go as planned.But Iggy has a plan. He always has a plan.





	run boy run

Really, this was supposed to be a routine scouting mission.

It’s early in the morning, and they weren’t about to wake Noctis and Prompto to come on an initial survey of the mines in Leide. The elevators had seemed functional enough that Ignis had deemed them safe to ride, so down Gladio and Ignis had gone, investigating the shallower depths of the mines.

It really was supposed to be easy.

Except they hadn’t expected the intelligence of the daemons - honestly, it’s almost like they’re human sometimes - and they’d let them catch them off guard. One moment, it had been quiet except for their footsteps echoing around the stone walls of the tunnel, and then there had been a cackle and a screech of old steel on steel, and suddenly a mine cart had come barrelling towards them out of the darkness.

Ignis is usually fast. He usually dances out of the way of any blade or attack.

He isn’t fast enough.

Now Ignis is lying on his back, breathing hard and trying to hide the hitches in his breath from the pain. Gladio hears them, though. He always hears them.

“It’s not bad,” Ignis assures him. He scrabbles for purchase on the cave wall and starts to pull himself up. 

Gladio watches him warily. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” Ignis says, but his voice is tighter than before. He’s half upright, but he’s still sitting. It’s not that he isn’t moving his legs, or trying to. They’re just…not working. 

“Iggy-”

“I’m fine.” He looks decidedly  _ not _ fine, and there’s a faint sheen of sweat on his face. It makes him look even more pale and vulnerable under the harsh glare of their flashlights. “I just need a moment to collect myself.”

Gladio opens his mouth to say something else, because clearly Ignis needs more than a moment, but he’s not about to step on Ignis’s pride like that. He folds his arms and carefully turns his head away to give Ignis a moment. He keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye, though.

Ignis, to his credit, is a master at suffering in silence. He grimaces and clutches at the roughly hewn edges of the wall, clinging at them like they’re the only thing holding him up. Maybe they are.

Gladio can’t take it anymore. “Your legs-”

“My back,” Ignis interrupts with a shaking sigh. “The cart. It hit me on the back. It’s a temporary loss of feeling, surely.”

Gladio’s not so sure.

Ignis ducks his head, wiping the worst of the sweat and dirt off onto his sleeve. “Did you…?”

“Potions?” Gladio guesses. “No.”

Ignis scowls and tosses his head, flicking a strand of sweaty hair out of his face. “I was going to say elixirs, but it’s all the same, I suppose. We were woefully unprepared.”

He’s right. What were they thinking, running in here with only the armiger to protect them? They should’ve known better. They’re supposed to be the smart ones; they’re supposed to be the ones in charge. Gladio wants to apologize to Ignis; he wants to get down on his knees or trade places or do anything to keep this from happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Ignis is borderline invincible; he can’t go out of commission like this, crippled by a cart in a cold abandoned mine.

Instead, he says, “We need to get out of here.” Already he can hear the daemons starting to scramble along the rock around them, sensing their weakness. Gladio’s not in the mood to stay here and fight while Ignis sits helplessly. Not today.

Ignis nods. “Right.” He blinks up at Gladio, furrowing his brow. “You need to carry me,” he tells him.

“What?”

Ignis is dead serious. “Carry me, Gladio. I know you can. I’d wait here if I could, if it’d keep you safe-”

Goddamn martyr. “You can’t do that, you know that we need you-”

“I know.” Ignis grimaces and shifts, once more trying to prop himself up.

“Stop that,” Gladio says roughly. “I’ve got it.”

Ignis studies him carefully for a moment and then sighs. He lifts his one of his arms, bracing the other on the cave wall. “On with it, then.”

Gladio bends and carefully slides one of his arms underneath Ignis’s legs, listening carefully for any sort of reaction. Ignis’s breathing is low and even beside his ear, though, so Gladio ducks a bit lower and wraps an arm around Ignis’s back. He tugs gently, and Ignis dutifully wraps an arm around Gladio’s neck, splaying a palm across his back. He rests the other one on Gladio’s shoulder and clutches at the fabric tightly when Gladio finally lifts him up in a firm hold.

Despite the situation, Gladio chuckles. “I’m not going to drop you,” he says.

“I know,” Ignis snaps, but his cheeks are a little red, even in the meager lights they have.

Gladio chooses to not say anything. Even like this, Ignis is more than a little terrifying, especially when he’s embarrassed.

The scuffling, cackling noises of the daemons are getting closer. It’s not a welcome sound.

Gladio stares over at Ignis, who’s now scanning the darkened tunnels with a practiced eye.

“You got a plan, Iggy?”

Ignis grins. It’s one of his rare smiles, the one he reserves for the heat of battle and the grim delight of fighting. “I may be incapacitated, but I still have my knives.” With a flourish and the sound of shattering crystals, he pulls a dagger from the armiger. Gladio can feel its cold weight against his shoulder blade, pressed there by Ignis’s hand.

“Plan?” Gladio prompts.

“Indeed. You’ll head back to the elevators. I’ll cover our backs. The chamber is narrow enough that they can’t have flanked us, so the path ahead will be clear.” Ignis frowns into the darkness of the mines. “We should go,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah.” Gladio hefts Ignis, resettling him in his arms, and starts trudging up the mine tracks towards the elevators.

“Gladio,” Ignis says lowly into his ear, “perhaps you should run.”

Gladio doesn’t have time to look over his shoulder and see what they should be running from. He trusts Ignis and he knows that when Ignis says to run, they should  _ run. _

He runs.

Immediately, the mine comes alive with the sound of snarling. Something skitters up and tries to latch onto Gladio’s shoe, but he kicks it away and stomps on it in stride, relishing the sound of its squeal. Ignis twists in Gladio’s grasp, and the hand on his back disappears for a brief moment, replaced by the fierce momentum of a throw. A second later, the squeal of a daemon tells Gladio that Ignis hit his target.

“Good shot,” he mutters.

“Shouldn’t you be running?” Ignis snaps, but it’s sort of amused. 

Gladio keeps running.

In his arms, Ignis leans and twists like a snake, sinuous and lethal, conjuring up daggers as fast as he can throw them. The angle is awkward for both of them, and it can’t be easy for him to aim while Gladio’s running, but Ignis is nothing if not adaptable, and it sounds like he’s making short work of whatever’s chasing them.

Gods, there’s the elevator.

The sight of it gives him new strength, and he readjusts his grip on Ignis and pours new purpose into his stride, practically leaping across the threshold. He turns as Ignis tugs the elevator shut and punches the button to bring them to the surface.

It’s not a moment too soon.

Through the elevator grate, Gladio can see the glowing red eyes of an aramusha piercing the shadows of the mine tunnel. For a few heartbeats, the three of them are silent: Gladio, Ignis, and this daemon that watches them from a mere word length away. It could stab them if it wanted to, and corner them in this elevator where they can’t escape. But it doesn’t.

It’s waiting for them.

The elevator ascends.

Ignis breathes out a sigh the moment that the car passes out of sight of the tunnel. “Thank the gods,” he murmurs, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “That worked well.”

“It did,” Gladio agrees. He raises an eyebrow at Ignis. “You don’t keep still.”

Ignis snorts. “I thought you were strong enough to handle it.”

“I was,” Gladio protests. “It’s just inconvenient.”

“I’m sure.” But Ignis is smirking, and his green eyes glitter with rare mischief as they ascend into the morning daylight.

Gladio grins back.

Gods, they actually made it.

Carefully, Gladio maneuvers them out of the elevator and into the sunlight, blinking against the contrasting brightness after their time in the mines. He’s walking now, slowly plodding down from the rocky mine entrance and down towards the car.

“Gladio, wait.”

Gladio stops. The car is right there. The haven is just beyond, trailing pale magical dust and smoke through the air. He can see the tents too, looming against the morning sky. “Why?” he asks, keeping his eyes fixed on the haven. 

“I-” Ignis bites at his lip in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “I don’t want Noct to see.”

“Oh.” Gladio nods slowly. “Yeah, of course.”

He turns and sets Ignis down gently in a patch of grass, letting Ignis settle himself comfortably. “I’ll, uh.” He points vaguely in the direction of the car. “Be right back.”

Ignis nods. He’s quiet now.

Gladio heads to the car. He tugs a pack out of the trunk and rummages around in it, retrieving an elixir and also a potion for good measure. He’s not sure what they’ll need.

When he returns to the grassy spot, Ignis is waiting quietly, picking at strands of grass like a nervous child. He runs a blade of it in between his fingers and twirls it. Gladio wonders if he’s imagining that it’s a dagger.

“Here,” he says roughly, holding out the elixir. 

Ignis jolts slightly, as if he’s been knocked out of a reverie of some sort. “Ah,” he says by way of greeting. “Thank you.”

“Thought you’d like to do it yourself,” Gladio explains as Ignis takes the elixir from him.

“You thought correctly,” Ignis tells him. He holds the elixir up in both of his hands and crushes it, casting both of them in a blue-white burst of magic in the early morning light. Immediately, Ignis sighs, slumping in the grass. “That feels better,” he breathes, and some of the color returns to his cheeks. His face doesn’t look nearly as pained anymore.

“Can you move?” Gladio asks.

There’s a brief moment of nervousness when he asks that. But the elixirs have never failed them before, so they can’t possibly fail now. Right?

Then Ignis’s leg twitches, and then his foot, and then he’s bending both of his legs, bringing himself into a stable sitting position.

They both breathe out a sigh.

“Much better,” Ignis says. “Much better.”

He gets all of his movement back, and he’s none the worse for wear. But. Well.

The two of them know what happened, and they know that there had been a possibility that the elixir wouldn’t have worked.

When they walk back into camp, a little dusty and sweaty but otherwise none the worse for wear, Prompto bolts up from one of the camping chairs, dropping his phone on the seat so he can bound up to them. “Where were you?” he cries.

“Scouting,” Gladio says, pointing vaguely over his shoulder with a thumb. “The mines.”

“You took a while,” Prompto tells him with a frown. “I woke up as you were leaving. You didn’t take us with you.”

Gladio opens his mouth to retort, but Ignis cuts him off smoothly. “Merely a bit of reconnaissance, Prompto. And I know how tired you were from our hunting last night. We figured you both could use some rest while we took care of some lighter work.”

Prompto pauses his restless movements for a moment, considering the words. Then he shrugs. “Yeah, you’re right,” he admits, and his grin returns.

“And Noct?” Ignis asks.

Prompto snorts. “What do you think? He’s in bed.”

Ignis visibly relaxes. “Very well,” he says, and he rolls up his sleeves primly. “Breakfast?”

 

* * *

 

When they go back into the mines later that day, Ignis is cautious as always. He warns Noct about the danger of minecarts with a tone that speaks of general indifference. But there’s something fierce in the way he slaughters the daemons on the mine tracks. 

Gladio’s proud of him.

Iggy always has a plan.

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from my [tumblr](http://www.triplehelix.tumblr.com) :)


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